What I Found Between Opening credits and Closing credits of "Between Hello and Good Bye"

Al right, first of all I really thank the director of "Between Hello and Good Bye" for making this beautiful short film. Note, I am thanking him and not appreciating him because, this film actually helped me to do some exercise on Screenplay writing. You will come to know about as your read this blog.

Assume the readers have watched the film, if not please do watch it before proceeding further.

Here is the link again : Between Hello and Goodbye - Tamil Short Film

First let's briefly go over the story as it was shot:

So its just a chronological story of a writer Dwarakh who broke up with his girl friend Rohini,  has a target to finish the summary of his novel in a day. But he finds to know that night is his girl friend's birthday. He calls her and comes to know she is engaged to Srinivasan. That causes an an argument. At the same time, he looses his pet dog Tony. Next day he explains it to his friend Satya who has crush on Dwarakh. After the painful event, they both look happy together. Dwarakh sits the night to finish the novel. When Satya meets him the following day, she comes to know Rohini is back along with Tony and Dwarakh is happy about that. Satya gets disappointed and goes away. However Rohini looks moody. When Dwarakh asks if Rohini is in love with Srinivasan, she interestingly says "I don't know", leaving both Dwarakh and Rohini in a state of confusion.


Now when I watched the film first time, I completely went out of the way it was narrated. That's why I thanked the director. During the scenes when he recollects his past moments with Rohini I thought the movie will go till the end in the same pattern, switching from present to past.

So till the time Dwarakh has the phone conversation with Rohini where he comes to know about Srinivasan, I was with the director and then I lost him and found something new. Here is that version of story what I found:

Till here we know, Tony was presented by Dwarakh to Rohini and now while he is having conversation with Rohini it was barking loud. It cuts to the restaurant scene where Dwarakh meets Satya. I assumed it was the morning of next day July 24 ( I am correct here). In this scene Dwarakh says he lost Tony last night. They go in search of Tony, they don't find it. Dwarakh hugs Satya, in that pain. Satya feels happy and they both come back home. She says at least finish tonight.

 - Here I felt the movie came to a climax. Rohini left Dwarakh but Dwarakh found Satya. Satya is happy too. I concluded -  "This is the End". The scenes followed, actually convinced me on this conclusion. Lets see how it happened :

After they go in the car, it cuts to Dwarakh's face in water bowl. There is a similar shot in the beginning of the film. I felt the movie has gone back in time to the same spot (23 rd night). To my bad (or good) Dwarakh wears similar kind of Red T-shirt. So in that night mode, I couldn't find difference between the two Tees and so I assumed its not 24th night but 23rd night.

He sits back and starts writing his novel. The clock shows time around 1:10 am. That also convinced me because on 23rd night he had called Rohini at around 11:55 pm. So I assumed this scene is after the call with Rohini and when he lost Tony.

There he hears sounds of foot steps, dog barking and someone ringing the calling bell. It cuts to Satya ringing the bell. That made me to think, the movie went bit more back again in past. Its the time when Satya was having crush on Dwarakh.  He says Rohini came at around 1:30 in the night. She brought Tony and they had good conversation. Satya feels she is lost, and she leaves.

Here I felt, the director used the 1:30 mark as the linking point. As Dwarakh was writing novel at around same time, he recollected of similar situation that happened in past. Moreover, Rohini brought Tony to his house. Initially he presented it to her. But from the beginning of the film we are seeing Tony in Dwarakh's house. I felt here is the link how the dog came to his house.

When Satya leaves, Rohini talks about Srinivasan. Dwarakh asks if she is in love with him. She says "I don't know". I was bit confused here. Dwarakh only came to know about Srinivasan on 23rd night. If this scene is sometime in past then how does he comes to know about Srinivasan ? I had this confusion.

Rohini had confusion about Srinivasan so she said "I don't know", Dwarakh was expecting Rohini to be with him but after her response he got disappointed. Satya was disappointed for loosing Dwarakh.

Movie ended there....

Even thought I had that little confusion, I was bit convinced that the screenplay actually had "The End" at around 20 min mark when Dwarakh hugs Satya and they both drive back happily. However to keep it special and new, I thought the screenplay is written to have a scene from their past at the climax point.

My chronology of the film after this conclusion was:

Rohini and Dwarakh were in love. Dwarakh presented her Tony. Satya had crush on Dwarakh but she was disappointed with both of them being together and Dwarakh was still loving Rohini. Rohini met Dwarakh and gave the Tony back as she was thinking about Srinivasan. On Rohini Birthday night, when Dwarakh sat to finish his novel, he had a conversation with her and recollected everything. In that frustration, he left Tony in outskirts but next day when he met Satya, he felt sad about loosing Tony. They both go in search of Tony but fail to find him. In that pain, Dwarakh hugs Satya and finds Rohini in Satya. Satya also feels happy about it.

(Totally a different Story. May be I don't like characters like Satya to be left with Pain)

Since I had that small confusion about Srinivasan, I watched the movie again and then realized I took a different route after mid-way.

However based on my understanding, I made few observations on the characters. Hope you find those interesting too...


About Dwarakh:

1. Starting with the title, that comes up as GUDBYE and gets "re-written" to GOODBYE. 
2. In the following scenes, he writes few lines of chapter 3 and again he "re-writes" it as he didn't like it first.
3. He is unsure of the spelling for "Mosaic". He made a mistake and corrects it. He pre-records it as well that he will make a mistake.
4. He writes Pink skirt and then "rewrites" to Red Skirt. (That's what he wants it to be).

I felt all these talk about Hero's characterization. Look at his life. He fell in love with Rohini then had some conflicts and then they both broke up. Now he feels he still loves her and wants to gain that relationship. It means he wants to "re-write" his past in a better way and in the way he wants at this time.

About Rohini:

She was a girl who was very much interested in classical dance, who joined Kalakshetra but all of a sudden changes her plan to become a Air-Hostess. That shows she could be fickle minded who changes her decision even on high priority things. That same nature could have caused her to feel Srinivasan is better than Dwarakh.

About Tony :

Tony appeared to me as their symbol of love. If you have followed my chronology, Dwarakh presents it to Rohini. Later Rohini returns it back to him. It means she returned his love back. When Dwarakh looses Tony, he hugs Satya and feels the comfort. It means the symbol of Dwarakh-Rohini's love is gone so there is no barrier between Satya and Dwarakh.

About Satya:

A cool friend of Dwarakh. She also has crush on him. But when she sees both Dwarakh and Satya together she gets disappointed and left out. However when Dwarakh is sad and helpless, she comes there for him and finally she was happy when he hugged her. They both were together.


Those are my findings. Hope you are also able to follow my version of story as well and my observations.

Feedback on this feedback is also welcomed.

- Sai Kiran
(SaikiranVepa@gmail.com)

Shot By Shot Analysis of Never-Seen-Before Indian Film - Baahubali's Trailer

Hello Readers, 

Good to meet you all again through another blog. In this blog, I will be doing a shot by shot analysis of a trailer of the most prestigious, expensive and above all, most anticipated film of Indian Cinema, with sky touch expectations, with lot of buzz going around, the Never-Seen-Before- Indian Film Baahubali.

This film, I am sure most of you know, took 1 year of pre-production and 2 years of shoot and I believe post-production. After a gap of more than 3 years, finally its coming out on July 10, 2015. They released the 2 min trailer few days back on 1st of June and it has already created a sensation in social media.

With no more lag, lets see through our magnifying lens, analyzing shot by shot, what the director Mr. S. S. Rajamouli wanted to say through this trailer.

Shot 1 - Top angle view of the Castle

- Castle looks solid and grand, not a kid's drawing. The design looks very complex, not a one day effort, you can easily tell that. Lot of physical and mental effort made this fort look what it is. 

And this is also a set up, setting up audience mood to the film. Best way you can introduce the film, with this establishment of the place where things happen. The audience are taken into that world now. The slow zoom-in through the clouds at a high angle makes us feel like, we are Aliens and the director is taking us to this new world of Baahubali.

Shot 2 - Top angle view of people walking

- Shows how big and tall the fort is. You can see the people look very tiny there. The top angle helping to tell audience that it has sky touching roof.

Shot 3 - Panning from Mountains to battlefield

- With no delay, Director straight away went to the most awaited area - the battle field but at the same time, he didn’t reveal it completely. Focusing on the strong big mountains, he is trying to give information about the geography of the world he created for this film. You can again find here, people looking like ants.

Shot 4 - First character Anushka revealed

- This is very interesting shot, we see Anushka standing infornt of yet again a tall construction. Here its a pillar. Her look is pretty similar to the poster that was released few days prior to the trailer. Interesting point to note is Anushka is never seen at any other place in the trailer. Director wanted to keep her character, a secret. I am curious to see her in the film.

Shot 5 - The Kid

- This is the Prabhas character introduced as Kid, giving audience crucial info that a chidhood story will be shown in the film. Could be short or long, that’s immaterial. Most talked about in the film, is the visual grandeur. Its astonishing, the waterfalls in the background. 

- If you remember the dialogue of the lady standing there, she is trying to threaten the Kid that there is going to be ghosts on top. I sense like the Kid wants to climb those rocky mountains and the lady is trying to stop him by scaring him with the name of ghosts.

Shot 6 - Panning from Waterfalls to Bahubali

- Again a beautiful visual of waterfalls, a treat to eyes. Notice, the waterfalls are so high, the kid climbing the rock looks very small, a mini-creature.

- It also shows the character of the Kid. In spite of the threats from the lady, the Kid still tries to climb the gaint rocky mountaions, shows about his brave character and fearless attitude. This is a great way of setting up a character.

Shot 7 - Prabhas Intro

- Much awaited, hero Prabhas introduction running towards the waterfalls. If you notice, the camera pans from Prabhas to the Waterfalls, exactly opposite to the previous shot. The reason I can think of is in the previous shot, its the grandeur of the water falls that director wanted to emphasize more and here its on the hero Prabhas.

Shot 8 & 9 - Prabhas hanging on Rocky mountains

- This is something that we have never seen before on Indian cinema, a guy hanging and crawling on rocky mountains, with great water falls in the background. View of Nature at its best, captured at their best. But yeah, there is for sure Computer Graphics work involved. Even that is done at its best. Isn’t it.

Shot 10 - Prabhas in air and we see Tamanna for the first time

- This is intro of another lead role, done by Tamanna, This look is also released well ahead of the trailer, as a poster. This shows how good the planning was done by the team. They released few posters, gave a glimpse of the lead characters to the audience, tuned their minds and then released the trailer which had same information with some add-ons. Impressive.

Shot 11 - Beauty at its best

Closer shot of Milky beauty Tamanna standing infront of the milky white waterfalls.

- Yes, this movie is about action, battles, violence, blood, but still it has love, glamour and romance. I don’t think there can be better visual than this, for this kind of a subject, or any subject for that matter.

Shot 12 - I am short of words to explain this

- This is totally out and out of director’s vision. Look at the density and strength of the waterfalls in the background.

- Looking at this I am guessing this could be a song sequence. Lets wait and see in the film. Again, you can see people looking very tiny, showing how huge the waterfalls are. 

Shot 13 - Back to Action

- After giving couple of glimpses on beauty and romance, the mood suddenly switches to action, showing the serious side of the film

Shot 14 - Long shot of the Battle Field

- This is released in Teaser, long shot of the war field. They used same shot again in the trailer. Very intelligent. They don’t want to give away too much information prior to release. 

Shot 15 - Ringing Bells

- This is very interesting shot. See the camera is slightly tilted. The building is covered in the background and the shot is composed beautifully. This shot is an alarm for something big and dangerous coming next.

Shot 16,17,18 - Statue of Bhallaladeva

- Here we have three shots, close-up, long and again a medium-long shot of Bhallaladeva’s statue, played by Rana. You can see how huge the statue is, in the third shot, with a guy standing at front. The only reason I can think of for this guy standing here, is to show the magnitude of this huge statue.

- There are three small mountains of Red powder, I am assuming that is Kumkuma, a religious powder in India but it is used very well, when it puffs out like blood, symbolizing the cruel nature of this Character and also represents that on the blood of his slaves, he is ruling the kingdom.

- There is one more interesting thing to note. How beautifully the CG work has been done here. I am pretty sure, its not the original Kumkuma that is puffing out, as we can see here, suddenly the intensity increases, so this could be art of CG work. Marvelous. Isn’t it.

Shot 19,20 - Struggle

- Right after signs of Villian its hero’s struggle that is show. His story also has some pain, making him a human and not a super hero. 

Shot 21 - Fort

- I am not sure how much of this frame is physically built and how much is CG work but visually I feel I am standing infront of the Fort. Its like facing the Taj Mahal. I feel like taking selfie with this fort in the background.

- Again notice, how tiny the people are leaving to your imagination, how huge these structures are.

Shot 22- Villain Intro

- After sending all signals, finally director shows the Villians and also their evil acts. Rajamouli is know for his bad-villains, not sure how the thoughts come out of the creative brains but Villains in Rajamouli films are always something to watch out for. You will come to know more soon, if you are new to it.

Shot 23 - Evil acts

- After the villain is shown, we see how his men are torturing the slaves. All these shots give us more information on Villain’s character, attitude towards people.

Shot 24 - New character

- He is a new face in the story. Looks like a good guy, reading from his expression, he is not happy with things happening around. I could be wrong but I will happy in that case, as it will be another surprise to know about this guy’s character.

Shot 25 - Again acts of the Evil

- Showing how they are torturing the people, could be treating them as slaves. I don’t know

Shot 26 - Scared eyes

- This is the best shot I would say, to show how evil the bad guys are, how cruel their acts are from the single expression on this little innocent kid’s face. 

Shot 27 - Elephant

- I couldn’t get the context of this shot with respect to the film, but for me, this looks to be a CG work which cannot be noticed, when watched in real-time. The elephant, I don’t think its real one unless I am expecting beyond expectations.

Shot 28 - Nassar

- Another important character introduced. Also looks like bad guy with evil-laugh.

There is something here, that I didn’t notice first time its his hand which is deformed -  that’s a CG work which I didn’t catch while watching the video at normal speed but only found while taking notes.

Shot 29 - Bull

- Again a CG work, running bull - symbolising the power and Anger. Curious to know the context of this shot. 

- Director gave few shots, without context, leaving the blanks to be filled at the realease.

Shot 30 - Switching from Bull to Rana

- I liked this shot - first of all, its Massive Rana coming all onto our face. Awesome built

On creative side if you see, the running bull is the set up and then it got transformed to Rana, to emphasize the power and Strength of Rana - Narration.

Shot 31 - 38

- All these shots elevate Prabhas character and increases the curiosity in audience to know what the story is about, gives few crucial clues about the lead characters.

Shot 39 - Director’s card

- Lifting the curiosity to the peak and then he landed before the actual Bahubali lands, increasing the excitement.

Shot 40,41 - shots of horse

- Remember there was a running bull shot before Rana’s intro. Here we have shots of horse and then it follows Close up of Rana. The horse symbolising the brisk, speed and power of Bahubali.

Shot 42 - Tight Close up - Powerful eyes of Bahubali

Shot 43 - Jai Maishmathi

- The first dialogue ever heard of Bahubali. sounds powerful, he looks strong and powerful, at a tight frame. Well composed, isn’t it. 

- Also notice the 'Horse' emblem on his chest, justifying why the shots of horse were shown first before introducing the Baahubali. Lot of symbolims used in this film.

Shot 44 - On the Horse

- The tempo is continued as horse cracks out of the stone pits reminds me of Kala Bhairava of Magadheera coming through waters.

Shot 45 - Rana at War

- We have seen Bahubali in war outfits and this time its the look of Rana that is introduced in the War costumes.

Shot 46 - Most awaited

- a close Glimpse at the War field. Look at the soldiers, their costumes, their eyes and their count. lot of physical and CG work involved.

Shot 47 - Bahubali at the Battle field

- I am guessing people are tied as slaves and Bahubali is coming to rescue them. The blood splashes out is a good CG work here like in 300.

Shot 48 - Intro of Ramya and Nassar

- Ramya and Nassar are shown. First time Ramya on screen. If you remember the earlier shot of Nassar, he was looking old, with white beard, here he looks young, assuming hair grays out with age. 

It tells us that the story has two time periods. We are going to do a time travel, mostly from Present to Past but lets wait and see.

Shot 49 - Another villain

- Most horrifying villain is shown, he is in the battle field. Looks scary, evil and what not.

Shot 50 - Zoom out from War field

- Showing how big and vast the war field is, telling the audience that this is not gully cricket but the Eden Gardens of Kolkata.

Shot 51 - Clash of two parties

- Wait a sec, is this an Indian film or a high budgeted Hollywood film. That’s what everyone felt about this shot. The magnitude of the film, clearly visible.

Shot 52 - Rana

- Showing the war scene again director is very kind enough with audience. Interesting to note is the weapon used here. Saying its not swords always.

Shot 53 - Prabhas

- After Rana, it cuts to Prabhas. Could be a rebel here. looks like revolting against the mighty.

Shot 54 - Prabhas at war

- In the previous shot, director quickly took us back to some other spot in the story and brought us back to the war field.

- I liked the way the two shots (53 & 54) are edited. In the previous shot we see Prabhas hitting a guy but we don’t see the guy’s reaction, here we don’t see how he hits but we see people falling out.

The punch is continued from one shot to other and the effect is shown in the second shot. Not bad, right.

Shot 55 - Followed by the Roar

- Increasing the intensity and emotion, we see Prabhas as roaring lion.

Shot 56 - Wounded Tiger Rana

- Spitting out blood, Rana is shown as a wounded tiger now ready to bounce back strongly at his enemies.

Shot 57 - Warrior at work

- Showing the strength of Bahubali at work

Shot 58 - Powerful Rana

- This is Rana at his peaks with his mighty arms stretched out and his brought chest occupying the center of the frame.

Shot 59, 60, 61 - Weapons

- We see, Axe, arrow and sword - used by Bahubali - the variety of weapons that are used in the film.

Shot 61 - Long shot zooms in to Close up 

- very interestingly, starts at long and suddenly zooms in to show the power of Bahubali. Charater elevation shot.

Shot 62 - Leaving it High

- Finally after taking us to peaks, with high voltage shots, director leaves us in air, along with Bahubali as he jumps into air.

Shot 63 - Mysterious shot

- The big blow is saved to the end, where we see a hand carrying a baby - the first ever poster of Bahubali released. very mysterious.

- There is a lot to study in this shot. You can see Sun-rise in the background and could be a son in the foreground, suggesting it as a son-raising. Also the tag line goes as ‘The beginning’ and this could be the starting point of his great journey.

That’s all I have about this trailer. Very exciting to watch and equally exciting to write about it. Hope you enjoyed reading it as well. Lets all meet virtually on July 10 and visit the world of Baahubali, created by Rajamouli.

Thank you!

- Sai Kiran